Life (Right to)

This public interest litigation case was a response to the fire that swept through Lord Krishna Middle School in the Kumbakonam District.  Lord Krishna Middle School was private school with approximately 900 students.  A fire started in the kitchen nearby that eventually caught the thatched roof of the school building, which fell and killed 93 children inside.  When the firefighters arrived on scene, they noted that the school was severely out of code.  Municipal building codes required the school to be certified every two years, but Lord Krishna Middle School was three years delinquent and

On January 6, 2011, farmer Ruben Portillo died in transit from a hospital after experiencing severe nausea and fever, allegedly because of his intake of agrochemicals (pesticides and insecticides). Twenty-two other members of Colonia Yeruticreadaen (“Colonia”), in the Curuguaty District of Paraguay, were affected by similar symptoms at the same time.

Nell Toussaint challenged Canada’s denial of health care coverage to undocumented immigrants under the under the federal government’s program of health care to immigrants, called the Interim Federal Health Benefit Program. After exhausting domestic remedies, Toussaint brought her claims to the United Nations Human Rights Committee (Committee) under the optional complaints procedure (first optional protocol) to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Canada ratified in 1976.